Teaching

As an Assistant Professor of English at Rollins College, I teach first-year writing, professional and technical writing, and special topics courses in the professional writing minor and English major, such as Writing & Literacy, Food Writing & Blogging, Professional Travel Writing, Editing Essentials, and Visual/Verbal Text Design. I have also taught general education courses, including Graphic Travel Memoir, and condensed Masterworks courses in the Master’s in Liberal Arts program. During my year as Visiting Assistant Professor at Marymount California University, I taught developmental reading, developmental writing, and first-year writing. In all of my courses, I emphasize a combination of digital and visual literacies, public writing, and service learning.

While I was a Graduate Assistant at The University of Arizona, I taught our stretch composition sequence, business and technical writing, and participated in a genre studies pilot curriculum for first-year students. Before this, I taught for one year in Colombia at the Universidad Tecnologica de Bolivar, a private university on the Caribbean coast.

I invite you to have a look at some of the courses I’ve designed and their course descriptions, listed below. Of course, if you would like a syllabus from any of my courses, please don’t hesitate to email me at kristin [at] kristinwinet [dot] com.

Rollins College (2016– )

This sampling of courses highlights some of the contributions I have made to the English major and minor in professional writing. All course descriptions are my own.

Writing for the Community: Writing & Literacy

Community nonprofits are some of our best storytellers—the narratives they share shape their impact in the community, engage their stakeholders and volunteers, and create an indelible ethos both in the office and community they serve. But how do these stories get told? Who decides how to tell them? And how do the various public(s) respond to these stories? In this course, you will refine your skills in professional writing and visual design (two critical components to any community writing projects) by working with the Adult Literacy League in Orlando. In addition to learning some of the theory and practice behind technical communication, you will learn to write informational reports and external proposals, revise volunteer recruitment materials, gather and share the powerful stories of the students the organization serves, and propose and create a communication package for them. By the end of this course, you will have confidence creating professionally-written, design-savvy documents that showcase your skills in this very unique form of writing.

Visual/Verbal Text Design

This course will make you question how you ever looked at the world before seeing it through a designer’s eye. From the first day of class, we will think of ourselves as document designers, asking ourselves question like: Why does La Croix’s font look like it came out of 1995? Why do red and green work so well together as Christmas colors? Why do advertisements make us buy things? And why are maps of Africa so distorted? To answer these (and other) pressing questions, we will first dive into the intricacies of page design, color, typography, and desktop publishing, practicing our brand-new designer skills on a redesign project in Adobe InDesign. Then, we will turn our attention to visual rhetoric, argument, and ethics, helping us understand the complex rhetorical and visual decisions writers make when they face the blank page. Along the way, you will keep a creativity journal, designed to get you out of your comfort zone every few weeks. At the end of the semester, you will design, create, and present a redesign a project for real readers. Our readings will complement our exploration of document design from theoretical and technological perspectives and will help you develop strong design insight and awareness.

Editing Essentials

This is a course about sentences. More specifically, it is a course that will prepare you to talk about sentences, more thoroughly understand sentences, and create more evocative and graceful sentences. We will begin our course by considering the ethical and historical dimensions of studying grammar, continue by examining the grammar of basic sentences, move into more complex and complicated sentences, and finish by considering how writers use grammar and punctuation toward rhetorical and stylistic ends. We will pair these discussions with conversations about editing and style, or the layer over grammar that gives writing its character. As we work, you will also revise your own prose and that of others, demonstrating how you’ve come to understand how editors make choices. Throughout this course, you will be challenged to think about the smallest parts of our language—the parts that often go unnoticed—as you learn to see and understand the language you use every day from a more thoughtful, critical perspective.

Studies in Professional Writing: Travel Writing

In this professional writing course, we will begin by exploring what travel writers actually do—how they travel, how they find and research stories, how they document their experiences, and how they write and publish their stories. We will ask ourselves: What about travel writing is so appealing and universal? What does travel—and the act of documenting and reflecting on it—do for writers and their readers? And how do travel writers fit into the modern tourism industry? To complement our exploration, we will read and analyze some of today’s best travel writing from the newest edition of The Best American Travel Writing and consider what makes travel writing such a complicated subject—one imbued with issues of race, gender, colonialism, exoticism, and the ethics of representation. Throughout the semester, we will pitch, develop, research, and write three travel stories and explore our own identities as writers and travelers. At the end of the course, we will refine our own brands and create a digital portfolio of travel writing to send to future editors and publishers.

Topics in Creative Writing: Food Writing

In this course, we will explore the delectable world of professional food writing. We will begin our course by considering what food writing is—and what makes it such a unique genre of nonfiction. Then, as we set up our food blog and learn about the contemporary world of food blogging, we will read some of today’s best food writing from The New Yorker and consider what makes food writing such a complicated subject—one imbued with issues of race, sex, gender, class, and taste. Throughout the course, we will “do” as much as we will “write:” we will go on a private walking food tour, meet and interview a local chef, take a cooking class, and hone our craft through plenty of writing and revision exercises and in-class workshops. Using our activities and course readings as inspiration for our writing, we will write reviews, chef profiles, recipes, and feature essays, and you’ll learn some tips and tricks for writing about the food you make, prepare, eat, and share. By the end of this course, you will have a series of published articles on our class website that you can use as published clips for future writing assignments.

First-Year Writing: Writing about Celebrities & Media

This is not a class about the Kardashians. Or, maybe it is…in some ways. This course will have you investigating and writing about celebrity, thinking about the ways in which our cultural lives and media have informed how we understand fame. In this writing-intensive course, we will begin by analyzing controversial celebrity stories, examining the ways in which the celebrities (and their adversaries) are villainized or celebrated by their authors. In the second unit, we will complicate the notion of “celebrity” by considering how gender and the body affect our understanding of why and how people become “famous.” Then, we will turn to our own research, ending the semester with a project informed by our course discussions, readings, and scholarly investigations. At the end of the semester, you will remix your research into a piece of writing for a popular audience, a skill that you will often have to do in your academic and professional lives.

Marymount University (2015-2016)

Introductions to Literature

This course is centered around the idea of introductions. The word introduction, which appeared in English in the late 14^th century, means the “act of bringing into existence,” and is from the Latin word meaning “a leading in,” “a bringing forward.” In this spirit of this word, we’re going to spend the semester “bringing into existence” our knowledge of and appreciation for contemporary Western literature and its writers. Throughout the semester, you will be introduced to literary terms—all of which will help you think about, analyze, and discuss your thoughts and reactions to the works of art we read—and you will learn to write coherent and interesting responses to the texts we ready. By the end of class, you will have a deeper appreciation for the complex craft of writing and will hopefully leave with a much greater knowledge of and appreciation for contemporary Western literature.

The University of Arizona (2007-2015)

This list highlights some of the courses I taught as a Graduate Assistant in Teaching. All course descriptions are standardized within the Writing Program.

Technical Writing

English 308 offers junior- and senior-level students the opportunity to develop their use of the rhetorical strategies and communications technologies appropriate to technical writing situations. Students will plan, create, and user-test a range of individual and collaborative projects including, but not limited to, technical documentation, proposals, reports, job materials, and other technical genres. Project management, documentation plans, style guides, and usability testing are just some of the topics studied in English 308. Through client-based projects, simulations, and/or case studies, students will analyze and reflect upon the role of communication practices in a range of technical settings. Students can expect to engage in reading discussions, daily assignments, on- and off-campus research, technology use, and oral reports.

Business Writing

Business writing is a junior- and senior-level course that gives students the opportunity to develop their use of rhetorical strategies and communications technologies appropriate to workplaces. With an emphasis on written communication, students engage in projects that require them to analyze and respond to a variety of professional situations. Students plan and create a range of projects including employment documents, proposals, reports, brochures, newsletters, memos, letters, and online web portfolios.

First-Year Writing: Textual Analysis

This course emphasizes close reading and written analysis of a wide range of texts such as short stories, poems, novels, plays, and film. Through both formal and informal writing assignments, you will practice a variety of methods for examining these texts. Embracing the process of writing is a major emphasis for this course. Class activities may include forms of prewriting such as brainstorming or outlining. Workshopping drafts of your essays with classmates will be an integral feature of each unit as you practice strategies for revising and editing your essays according to academic expectations. You will pay special attention to language and grammar as you compose final versions of your essays in Standard Written English.

First-Year Writing: Rhetorical Analysis & Argumentation

Building on the close reading, focused research, and reflective writing done in English 101, English 102 emphasizes the skills of rhetorical analysis, research, persuasion, reflection, and revision. It is designed to help students learn to write for varied audiences and situations, find and evaluate sources, and make critically aware decisions about how best to achieve their purposes at the university and beyond. The immediate goal of this course is to prepare students for further research and writing in their future fields of academic work.

 

Universidad Tecnologica de Bolivar (2005-2006)

ESL for Advanced Speakers

This course is designed to help students communicate more effectively and confidently in spoken English. The course addresses improvement in oral skills needed for class discussions and presentations. Students also have opportunities to develop their vocabulary and grammar skills as well as practice pronunciation through group exercises.